Using the EU Funds between 2007 and 2013 from a Development of Disadvantaged Regions Perspective: the Case of Polish Regions

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the development of using financial resources from EU funds between 2007 and 2013 within the Polish NUTS II regions in the aspect of the two sector model of national economy; to decide which fields of interest are influenced by EU funds (based on causality testing in the conventional Granger sense or the Toda-Yamamoto augmentation); and to evaluate the development of ratio between EU funds and national resources putted into co-financed projects. The analysis - applied on quarterly data - was divided into two main parts. The first part is focused on the two sector model: households sector is analysed by development of labour market indicators, and producing sector is analysed by development of financial results of enterprises. Another part targets the development of using EU funds in comparison to national contributions of co-financed projects. Based on empirical results, we can suggest that the influence of funding on regional variables is quite ambiguous. We can say that some causality from EU funds to the variables exists only within some regions, but not in general. Furthermore, among the variables of households rather than among the variables of enterprises some causality relationships have been found. The highest figure of existing relationships has been detected within the variable of average wages and salaries. In connection with another part of the analysis results, we can assume that employing of national resources cause selected variables much more than EU funding itself. We can suggest that the findings are valid in a wider context and can be applied to many other disadvantaged regions. Beyond that, the conclusions can give some little advice for forthcoming period of EU cohesion policy 2014 - 2020.